I bought the Hobbit when I was about 10 (thought the picture of Smaug on the front was cool). I thought that was an awesome book and was shocked to discover that there were more Middle-Earth books, which lead to me reading every Tolkien book I could get my hands on, which included copies of the Lord of the Rings books from my school library.
I used to be of the opinion that The Lord of the Rings couldn't be made into a film, but fortunately I turned out to be wrong.